When To Put Up Your Christmas Tree

          This is an age old question that has caused problems in families for years.  My husband’s father wouldn’t put up the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve.  The family would decorate it and they would keep it up well until January.  After he died his Mother kept it up until Easter, maybe she was rebelling.  He was a wonderful husband and father, he just had the tradition of putting up the tree on Christmas Eve. 

My family would get the tree sometime after Thanksgiving and keep it in the house until the New Year. 

            It has long been a tradition in my home to put the tree up after Thanksgiving for many people as that signifies the beginning of the Christmas Holiday.

            I put my Christmas tree up in October and have for the past few years.  You say that is too early?  Of course I don’t put up a live tree until closer to the Holidays but I get out my old “fake” tree as some call them and put it up early.  My Grand kids and I then decorate it slowly until the Thanksgiving Holiday.  We take our time and enjoy each ornament as we put it on the tree.  It takes us a while but we are not in any hurry.  I am a firm believer that Christmas is not just gifts, although that is a nice bonus; Christmas to me is the Holiday season with the family and what we do together.

  The reason I started putting my tree up so early is I am busy with work and don't get it up at all during the Holiday season. I would wait until after Thanksgiving to put it up because that is the thing you are supposed to do.  I would feel bad throughout the Holidays because I wanted a tree but didn’t have time to put it up.  The last year I put my tree up late my daughter and I were decorating it on Christmas Eve.  We were so tired by that time that we put very few decorations on the tree.  At that point we didn’t really care if we had one, we were almost throwing on the decorations.   That is when I decided to put it up early and enjoy it throughout the Holidays rather than have it a chore. 

If I have time closer to Christmas I decorate a live tree as there is nothing like the smell of a real Christmas tree to bring the Holidays to life.  I have plenty of decorations so there is always enough for all the trees and to spare.  I always take my tree down before the New Year.  I like to start the New Year fresh and new.

Do you think that all the homes in those magazines start after Thanksgiving?  No, many start in July or August to decorate the home for the Holidays and have a good time during the Holidays.

I was shopping after Christmas and was talking to a woman who was buying an artificial Christmas tree on sale for the following year.  She told me she liked to put her Christmas tree up and decorate early but her husband didn’t like it.  I told her I started in October and why.  She then told me she was going to tell her husband she was going to start earlier next year and not worry about what people think.  I’m not trying to make family problems, just want you to know that if you think you decorate early, I probably have you beat.